Fred Singer: Let's Lie About Global Warming

Fred Singer: Let's Lie About Global Warming

In his opening presentation to the Heartland Institute's climate change quibblefest, the ever-unreliable Dr. S. Fred Singer says, “Let's conclude that greenhouse gases are not responsible for global warming.”

Oh yes, let's.

Of course, according to form, Singer offers no proof to support this conclusion. He claims in a passing reference that he and a couple of other (more credible) authors have recently published a journal article that categorically dismisses the role of CO2 in global warming. But that article, which Singer has been misrepresenting for months, does no such thing.

Objectively, there is little evidence that Fred Singer is in the science business. He appears to maintain a tiny science sideline on which he can continue to support his main gig, which is consulting for every think tank in America that denies the science of global warming. Fred Singer is an activist, a PR guy who refuses even to acknowledge that's his main job.

As we have said before, you would think that reputable scientists would be embarrassed to be seen with him. But then, we leave it to you to judge the reputation of the other “experts” participating in the climate skeptics conference.

Previous Comments

At least Fred Singer is not in jail as Lefevbre, Desmogblog’s Alma Mater, for taking money from the gambling racket. And where there is gambling there is also hard drugs. This “guilty by association” is the kind of tactic you warmaholic people are doing by linking Singer and other sceptics to tobacco and big Oil.

Please tell me: What has Big Oil and Big Tobacco to earn from debunking global warming? The escalating CO2 neurosis seems to have been pushing oil prices up.

However, seeing who was (and still is) his patron, I wouldn’t trust even a prayer from Mr. Littlemore and this mudslinging blog.

Your after-tax income belongs to you. You are free to spend it, invest it, waste it, burn it, or tithe it–and none of that is any politicians’ business. But if some lawmakers have their way, soon you won’t be able to gamble your money away on the Internet.

In October, the Senate passed a bill enhancing port security, and attached to the bill is a title banning acceptance of credit cards or other payment instruments to process gambling transactions. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on October 13.

Earlier versions of the anti-gambling legislation would have required banks and Internet service providers to essentially spy on their customers, sifting through all financial transactions. Unsurprisingly, credit card companies didn’t want to be deputized as online hall monitors, responsible for ensuring that outfits for which they process card services remain gambling-free.

Thus, the latest version of the bill no longer obliges credit card companies and banks to identify firms engaged in gambling. Instead, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve would be required to collect a list of online gambling Web sites within 270 days. After that, banks and credit card companies would be prohibited from making payments to companies on the list.

Dressed Up as a Security Issue

This new approach might address privacy concerns, but it runs roughshod over individual freedom and fails to address another argument by the legislation’s advocates. As Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), argues: “Internet gambling is a national security concern because it can be used to launder money, evade taxes, and finance criminal and terrorist activities.”

In the post-September 11, 2001 world, politicians should be concerned about shady financial goings-on on the Internet. But legislation that enjoins cumbersome government bureaucracies to determine which companies are officially considered gambling operators will punish legitimate online businesses. ….

Legislation is notoriously slippery. What constitutes “gambling” is often in the eye of the beholder or legislator. Earlier versions of the bill had exempted such activities as fantasy sports. Even investing can be a “gamble” in the sense that “the opportunity to win is predominantly subject to chance,” as the legislation defined “gambling.”

‘Principle of Autonomy’

Apparently, only some gambling is bad. One gets the impression the real motive behind the legislation is not to protect against crime or terrorism but to legislate behavior. As Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) noted in opposing earlier anti-gambling legislation: “If an adult in this country, with his or her own money, wants to engage in an activity that harms no one, how dare we prohibit it. … The fundamental principle of the autonomy of the individual is at stake.”

Government should not turn vices into crimes–even granting the notion that gambling is a vice, which is questionable …

Once we travel down the road of regulating behavior on the Internet, there is essentially no limit to government’s ability to regulate behavior anywhere. Washington should mind the federal budget casino instead.

Wayne Crews ([email protected]) is vice president for policy and director of technology studies and Achim Schmillen ([email protected]) is a research associate at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. This article originally appeared in The Washington Times.

——–end excerpt———

That’s the law used to shut up the two Canadians whose business became – only in the USA, only last October – illegal. Everywhere else in the world, it’s still legal.

“He takes money from the tobacco industry and the energy industry and then denies it.”

Is that any worse than accepting money from the proceeds of crime?

http://www.desmogblog.com/the_bloggers/John+Lefebvre

At least the last time I checked, neither the tobacco nor energy industries were illegal. And what that might have to do with the merits of Dr. Singer’s arguments remains anyone’s guess, since you never bother to address his arguments.

“Fred Singer is an activist, a PR guy who refuses even to acknowledge that’s his main job.”

We’ll just let the rich irony of that statement stand on it’s own, for all to admire in complete awe.

“Which brings us back to the same problem with always have with Fred Singer: the man is a liar.”

You just keep getting more awesome, Little-more. Although, in my inexpert opinion, you might wish to retain a lawyer at this point.

Fred Singer already has my lawyer’s particulars, although other than one (not-very) threatening letter, this Freddy seems unprepared for a fight.

For my part, I would be thrilled if he sued. Imagine getting Fred Singer into a courtroom, under oath (as if that would make a difference).

And for your part, if you spent less time being triumphant about noticing that I work for a PR company (you sleuth, you), and more time reading the links, you’d see that we have evidence galore that Singer has lied, repeatedly and egregiously.

Calling someone a liar can be a libel and it can be an ad hominem attack. In Fred Singer’s case, however, it’s just a statement of fact.

Yesterday I posted a comment with the title “The Fuels of Freedom” and you guys wacked it! Fossil liquid fuels will always be required for transportation because these fuels have high energy density.

I wish you guys would stop bad-mouthing the oil companies because you just don’t get it. The reason people drive cars is quite simple: A car is absolute freedom and that is priceless! When was your Day of Freedom? My Day of Freedom was Aug. 1,1960 and the Wheels of Freedom was mid 1950’s deluxe Hillman Minx (export model) given to my brother and me by uncle whom lived in England. Actually, the car was just about worn out. Nevertheless, it was Freedom!

That’s so full of garbage, Harold! Haven’t you ever heard of electric cars? They can go fast enough and can go well over a hundred km before needing to be plugged in. If you haven’t heard of these cars, get your head out of the box it’s in and read a book!

If you want an electric car, you go buy one. I like a car with spirit and muscle, like a Hemi-Head V-8. I drive an ‘82 Merc Capri HB with a 3.3 L pushrod str. six, and it runs just fine. And I don’t have to worry about thieves stealing it. You won’t be able to keep these cars on the road because thieves will steal’em and strip’em for metal like copper. Battery packs don’t last forever, so thieves will steal’em for resale on the black markets,or strip’em for metal.

Here we have a perfect example of what marketing has wrought: the car as an extension of maleness, a testosterone boost. Whatever turns your crank, I guess. My car is a mode of transportation when necessary, nothing more. It sits in the driveway most of the time.

I don’t follow your logic that electric cars would be any more susceptible to theft than internal combustion cars.

Oh sure, a car can feel like freedom. But so can riding a bike, or walking, or riding a horse or paddling a canoe. I think the feeling of freedom is in being on the move; but there are many ways to do that and some don’t need oil or gas.

Richard Littlemore, if you think Dr Pachuari, president of the IPCC or their apparent spokesman Al Gore has any more credability than Fred Singer then you need to do some research. ‘Lying’ seems to be a habit with Dr Pachuari and Al Gore.

In particular their propensity for stating computer game simulations as a truth. At least Mr Singer doesn’t peddle scare stories based on hot air and use language as a mechanism to give misleadingly false impressions of the climate.

I’ve never come across a subject that’s so preverse and handled so disingenuously as this man-made climate science hyperbole. You haven’t got any evidence of global warming because it isn’t happening. You’ve only got BS computer predictions left. Dream on.

Johnnyb, get your head back in the sand and stay away from computers with access to the internet. You continue to show how wrong you are with every post you type. Don’t you ever get embarrassed by being so ill-informed?

You prove the saying that “the less one knows about a subject, the more they think they know”.

It is amazing to me that with all the documented proof, from memos telling the scientists like Fred to “reposition the view on global warming to a theory rather than a fact” from Peabody Coal, and memos from Exxon Mobil to the president telling him to hire and fire people, and he replies “is our environmental policy now acceptable to you”, and to make matters worse web sites like CEI and Junk science which are all funded by the oil industry and have no references for their sources, how any rational person cannot see the issue. If your sick you see a doctor, not a reporter or politician, and definitely not a doctor who gets money to lie to you, so if you want to know about the climate, you talk to a climatoligist who works with botonists, archaeologists,ice experts and the list goes on. You don’t ask the coal or oil industry supporters. If your rational and educated you know your source is only as good as its references. The National Academies of Science Agrees mankind is changing the climate, the 2000 scientists from every corner of the earth proved the climate is changing and man is the reason.
You don’t ask the weatherman about climate change. Climate is the most complicated, inter-dependent and inter-connected system known to man. The skeptics are not skeptics they are paid assasins. Tell the people of the artic global warming is not real, while their islands gets eaten by the sea and their homes fall into the ocean due to the loss of the ice pack, they have only lived there thousands of years before America was discovered. Tell the people in South America that the change in the hydrologic system is a figment of their imagination, while they suffer floods and loss of crops on a scale never before recorded. Tell the people in the swiss alps ski slopes that it is not real that they have to close the ski slope down and change it to a hiking area since there is no snowfall anymore that it is not real.
You can be a zombie, and let the media, who is bought and paid for in America tell you nothings wrong, or you can be a decent rational, thinking person and look at what is happening on a global scale and demand action. If you just use common sense it is not hard to realize that these corporations do not care about the damage they cause they just care about cash. It is not a conspiracy, it is simple greed. If we switch to renewable resources, the electic company no longer gets your money, the oil company no longer gets your money, coal companies have to shut down. So any rational thinking person can see these companies are trying to keep there business going at the cost of lives. Right now those suffering seem distant, but soon we here in the temperate zone will feel it as well. The last 5 years we consumed more wheat then we grew, wheat crops fail when temperature falls or rises more than an average of 5 degrees, oh yea scientists use celsius, only america uses farenheit. So an average of 2 degrees is a big deal. I can go on with the problems happening right now, but for some reason people think if it is not on the news it must not be important. Drug companies and oil and car companies, own our media in one way or another. The day of the dutiful reporter getting the truth to his readers is over. You can say ANYTHINGYOUWANTONTV, ANDJUSTRUN A CORRECTION, ONETIMEONONEOFTHENETWORKS. The correction is so short many people miss them. Do you read the corrections in your newpaper?
It is time we stop being America the selfish and greedy, and start being America the beautiful and caring. If we do not care about our fellow man, progress stops. Man has progressed through cooperation and caring about each other. Today, we live in an age of superficial and ignorant and selfish people who do not care about anything unless it affects them directly. Well by the time it is in your face and undeniable to a degree no one can play games with our mind and lack of scientific understanding, it will be too late.

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Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.

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